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A little more than an hour before the game begins, the gates outside the Johan Cruyff Stadium swing open and a thousand or so fans rush inside. Some scurry to the turnstiles. Others wait patiently at the merchandise stalls, anxious to buy a jersey, a scarf, a commemorative trinket.<\/p>\n
The busiest and longest line, though, forms outside a booth offering fans the chance to have a photo taken with their heroes. Within a couple of minutes, it snakes all the way back to the entrance, populated by doting parents and spellbound preteens hoping they arrived in time.<\/p>\n
They have come to see the most dominant women\u2019s soccer team on the planet. Barcelona Femen\u00ed has been Spanish champion every year since 2019. It has not lost a league game since last May, a run during which eight of its players also lifted the Women\u2019s World Cup. On Saturday, the team can win its third Women\u2019s Champions League title, which crowns the best professional team in Europe, in four seasons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
That success has turned the team\u2019s standouts into global stars and the club into what often seems like a juggernaut<\/a>. It has also transformed Barcelona, and the broader region of Catalonia, into the global heartbeat of women\u2019s soccer, a case study in what happens when the women\u2019s game wins the same prominence as the men\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On the city\u2019s streets, jerseys bearing the name of Alexia Putellas or Aitana Bonmat\u00ed<\/a>, Bar\u00e7a Femen\u00ed\u2019s biggest stars, are just as common as those with the names of an icon of the men\u2019s team. And on the region\u2019s soccer fields, a boom is playing out, with what was once a male-dominated space now awash in women and girls.<\/p>\n The number of registered female soccer players in Catalonia has doubled in the past six years, and it is expected to grow exponentially in the decade to come. There are more coaches, more clubs, more teams, more games, more leagues.<\/p>\n The young fans queuing for a photo were not hoping for a picture with a distant hero. They were hoping, instead, to be close enough to touch the women who have helped make all of that real.<\/p>\n From the age of 11 until she was 14, Marta Torrej\u00f3n said, she never played soccer against another girl. She had, in her younger days, when she was representing neighborhood teams. But from the moment she joined Espanyol \u2014 the smaller of the two professional soccer clubs in Barcelona \u2014 her teammates, and her opponents, were all boys.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At times, being the only girl among talents who would grow up to play in Spain\u2019s top league made her feel \u201cout of place,\u201d she admitted, but for the most part she was just thankful.<\/p>\n Torrej\u00f3n\u2019s first steps in soccer were both typical and not. Typical because she started playing in the late 1990s, when opportunities for girls to do so \u2014 in Barcelona, in Spain, in Europe \u2014 were scant and when those who joined boys sides were not always welcomed.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother has told me that there were parents asking if she knew there were girls\u2019 teams in some villages,\u201d Torrej\u00f3n said. \u201cMy mother would say, \u2018That\u2019s great, but she\u2019s here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And not typical because Torrej\u00f3n was not only courageous enough to withstand it, but also talented enough to make it. She only rejoined a girls\u2019 team at the age of 14, when Spanish law required her to do so. A few months later, she was in Espanyol\u2019s first team. She won a Spanish title there, and then added another six with Barcelona Femen\u00ed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Now, though, her experience feels anachronistic. Despite Spain\u2019s World Cup win last year<\/a> being clouded by the sight of Luis Rubiales, president of the country\u2019s soccer federation at the time, forcibly kissing Jennifer Hermoso, one of its most celebrated players, on the rostrum \u2014 an incident that ultimately led a charge of sexual assault<\/a> \u2014 the exponential growth of women\u2019s soccer in Barcelona is unchecked.<\/p>\nBoomtown<\/h2>\n